NZXT Kraken X63 RGB (White) AIO Liquid Cooler Review

Installation

Starting with the instruction manual, which we always consider a vital component of any CPU cooler, the first thing that struck me was just how big it is. It is absolutely huge and, in fact, reminded me of a London A-Z in the way it just keeps unfolding in every direction.

Fortunately, despite its rather massive size, the information within is of good quality with nice clear diagrams with easy to understand written instructions. All in all, as long as you pay attention (and can find the section that appertains to your socket in this labyrinth of paper) you shouldn’t have any problems fitting this to your system.

Mounting

The mounting system for the NZXT Kraken X63 RGB (at least on our Intel socket) was about as easy as it gets. As seen in the picture below, we were able to get this onto our motherboard within around 3 minutes. The more challenging aspect, however, presented itself in the ARGB cabling.

While correctly installing all the cabling isn’t impossible, it’s perhaps the one area where checking the instruction manual is most advised. However, the rest of the installation method is quite intuitive, and anyone with experience with AIO coolers shouldn’t have any problems. – You may not necessarily need the manual to correctly fit the cabling, as it’s honestly not that complicated. However, a first-time user might find it all a little intimidating as it’s a simplified system that, while ideal for experienced users, may not be so understandable for a novice.

The only notable grumble I had with it was the ‘daisy chain’ system used for the ARGB on the radiator fans. While this is exceptionally good in reducing clutter, I found the cable just short enough to make its insertion exceptionally fiddly and awkward work. Yes, I know, a longer cable would defeat the point. I do, however, sincerely wish that this was just 1cm longer.

It is, in fact, so short and compact that I’d almost be inclined to recommend that you have it inserted before you install the fans to the radiator. Trust me, doing it that way around will make the job a lot easier for you!

Overall Thoughts

From out of the box and onto our test bench, it took no longer than 10-12 minutes to successfully install the NZXT Kraken X63 RGB. A time. by AIO coolers of this standard with ARGB lighting is better than average. Once fitted, the ARGB light show can begin. Contrasting against the white colouring, it looks fantastic.

And remember a point I made earlier about the CPU block? As you can see in the image below, if the image isn’t displaying the right way up, you can simply turn the top by hand!

The ARGB lighting effects to the CPU block are probably what will impress consumers the most. With the NZXT logo the center, this, and the infinity glass style lighting, really work well together. Combined with the huge about of customisation options in the NZXT CAM software, while you can’t upload custom images/gifs, etc. like in some of their more premium cooling solutions, there is undoubtedly going to be something to suit all tastes here.

The lighting effects to the radiator fans are perhaps a little more standard in terms of modern expectations, but they’re bright, bold, vivid, and like the pump head, can easily be configured in the software to something that will undoubtedly suit what you’re going for in your system.

Although skipping ahead to the ‘uninstallation’ aspect (which we usually don’t cover), we do feel it noteworthy that when we removed the fans, we did find that a number of fins to the radiator had got mildly dented. While this isn’t overly uncommon for AIO radiators, it’s not as if we treated this roughly. In fact, we very deliberately don’t in case the review sample is ever required again in the future.

While this shouldn’t impact the performance as a whole, we would suggest, as a piece of consumer advice, that you should treat the radiator very carefully. We were not brash with it, and yet, the below picture clearly shows that some light damage has occured in the installation process.

On the whole, however, we’ve established that it looks good, and is fairly easy to install, but how does it perform? Well, with it hooked up to our test bench, let’s fire it up, get those benchmark programs running, and see what figures the NZXT Kraken X63 RGB produces!